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University Hxtension 
Philadelphia 

and Vicinity 
1890-1898 



Price 25 Cents. 



CONCERNING 



UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 



Its Significance, Method 
AND Results 



A STATEMENT FOR PUBLIC INFORMATION 



ISSUED BY 



The American Society for the Exten- 
sion OF University Teaching 



iti^nt 



Approved by 
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 



Philadelphia 

1898 

M 



Board of Directors. 



Charles A. Brinley, 
M. G. Brumbaugh 
Charles E. Bushnell, 
John H. Converse, 
Walter C. Douglas, 
Theodore N. Ely, . 
Charles C. Harrison, 
William H. Ingham, 
John S. Macintosh, 
Frederick B. Miles, 
Henry S. Pancoast, 
Joseph G. Rosengarten. 
Justus C. Strawbridge, 
Charlemagne Tower, Jr., 
Stuart Wood, 



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247 S. Sixteenth Street. 



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311 S. Fortieth Street. 

The Gladstone. 

1610 Locust Street. 

35 S. Nineteenth Street. 

Bryn Mawr, Pa. 

1618 Locust Street. 

2134 Pine Street. 

Magnolia and Locust Aves., G't'n. 

258 S. Eighteenth Street. 

East Johnson Street, Germantown. 

1704 Walnut Street. 

School Lane, Germantown. 

243 S. Eighteenth Street. 

1620 Locust Street. 



Frederick B. Miles, Treasurer. 

Office of the Society, iii S. Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia. 



1898 



STATEMENT. 



In considering any new educational move- 
ment it is as well to recall a few of the con- 
spicuous instances in which an important 
impulse has been given to the life of a people 
by an educational reform or a new method. 
The conception of free public schools for all 
children became a national ideal and was real- 
ized in practice in the United States earlier 
than in any country of modern Europe. It is 
not necessary to dwell upon the influence of 
this policy which is now followed by most 
civilized states. The recovery of Germany 
after the crushing defeats of the Napoleonic 
wars was the result of a conscious purpose in- 
spired by Fichte and Pestalozzi to re-establish 
strength by education. The remarkable pros- 
perity and importance of Holland in the seven- 
teenth century were contemporaneous with a 
general interest in education illustrated by the 
anecdote of a crowd of citizens in the streets 
of Breda, all studying a paper, "posted on a 



wall, and talking about its contents — an ab- 
struse mathematical problem, submitted in this 
way to the public for solution." Germany is 
to-day reaping the fruits of an educational 
policy, more recently adopted, with the definite 
idea of enabling German manufacturers to com- 
pete with the world. 

That modern societies are conscious that no 
people can afford to neglect education is shown 
by the fact that the example of the United 
States, in adopting after the Civil War as a 
national policy the principle that every child 
born within its limits shall have opportunities 
for an elementary education, has been followed 
by Germany, as early as 1870, and since then, 
more or less effectively, by France, England, 
Italy, and Austria, and further, by the fact that 
the sums devoted by states to educational pur- 
poses are constantly increasing from year to 
year. 

If education has a commercial value, its 
ethical value is no less certain. We cannot 
escape from the conviction that it is impossible 
to have good popular government and a well- 
ordered and progressive society without a high 
average of intelligence — not alone the intelli- 



gence which means practical efficiency, but that 
which is shown in thoughtfulness and ability 
to discriminate between what is false and bad 
and that which is honest and for the real wel- 
fare of the community. Only a very small 
proportion (six per cent, according to good 
authorities) of the people of the United States 
are systematically educated after leaving the 
common schools, say, at fourteen years of age. 
From that point the educational progress of 
the many is almost without guidance ; it can 
rarely be thorough, because their chief occu- 
pation must be to earn a livelihood. 

The recognition of these facts has resulted 
in many plans for supplementing early training 
by providing special opportunities for those 
who can give more or less leisure to self-im- 
provement. We have libraries, reading circles, 
correspondence schools, museums and collec- 
tions ; foundations for free lectures and evening 
instruction — generally in buildings provided 
for by the same endowment ; and free 
evening lectures in schoolhouses, conducted 
by boards of public education. The Lowell 
lectures in Boston and the Peabody Institute 
lectures of Baltimore are given by the trustees 
of funds bequeathed for the purpose. The 



Brooklyn Institute and Drexel Institute of 
Philadelphia are instances of plants for supple- 
mentary educational work ; the latter does ex- 
cellent class work, day and evening, of a 
systematic and continuous character. New 
York led the way seven years ago in estab- 
lishing through the board of education free 
evening lectures in the public schools ; Boston 
and Chicago have followed this example. The 
Chautauqua reading plan and such schemes as 
that of the Cosmopolitan Magazine are instances 
of reading circles and correspondence schools. 
In England two methods have been adopted : 
one, that of technical evening teaching, pro- 
vided for through grants of public money by 
the County Councils ; the other. University 
Extension lectures, mostly in history and liter- 
ature, under the direction of the great univer- 
sities. It will be seen that these two plans are 
complementary — the state teaching practical 
subjects, the universities the humanities. This 
same distinction can be traced in America in 
the difference between the work of technical 
night schools and that of University Extension. 
The free lectures in schoolhouses in New 
York, Boston, and Chicago have been on both 
scientific and general subjects. 



The advocates of University Extension in 
England say that it is especially valuable be- 
cause an eminently practical people can be 
trusted to get information that will be directly 
useful, but the University Extension lectures 
teach what the people would otherwise be slow 
to acquire, what is yet of the first importance, as 
the state needs not only skilled workmen but 
intelligent citizens. We have not "merely to 
make the man the better workman, but the 
workman the better man." 

The idea of University Extension first took 
root in the United States in Philadelphia, and 
since its organization here in 1890 the Philadel- 
phia Society has given more lectures to more 
people and maintained a higher standard in 
the instruction given than perhaps any organ- 
ization in the country which uses the lecture 
method for supplementary education. 

From Philadelphia the University Extension 
idea spread to New England, the Middle 
States, and the West, until not less than a 
dozen universities are now doing Extension 
work, and the number of persons afi'ected is 
probably not less than 100,000 yearly. The 
New York evening lectures in the public 
schools are attended by a nearly equal number ; 



and these lectures, in quality and method, are 
gradually approaching the standard set by the 
Philadelphia Society, whose lecturers have re- 
peatedly been called there. 

If we compare University Extension with 
reading circles and correspondence clubs, we 
cannot but see that there is an advantage in 
the contact of the speaker with the people he 
is teaching. The living teacher is the centre 
of inspiration. He gives them the best fruits 
of wide reading and systematic study; he not 
only can tell them what to read, but he can 
rouse an interest by his personal conviction 
and enthusiasm, and he gives an opportunity 
after each lecture for the discussion of any 
questions that arise ; he examines the essays 
that are written and guides the class study of 
those who do work between the lectures. 
Compared with fixed plants for doing the same 
sort of thing University Extension is more 
flexible and has the advantage of mobility. It 
carries the teacher as well as the teaching to 
the people. The lecturer goes where he is 
needed and uses any hall or room which will 
accommodate an audience. 

This winter there have been University Ex- 
tension lectures of the American Society in 



twelve different places in Philadelphia and in 
twenty-three different towns throughout the 
state. The interest on a sum necessary to erect 
such a building as Horticultural Hall, of Phila- 
delphia, would serve to maintain one hundred 
and fifty courses of six lectures each, given in 
outlying parts of Philadelphia and in towns, 
small and large, from here to Pittsburg — many 
places where such courses may change the whole 
current of thinking and induce people to read, 
who before have rarely read a good book. 

It should be stated here that it is distinctly 
the policy of the directors of the American 
Society to insist upon good quality in the 
teaching and upon continued work with the 
same people. 

The common schools are a defence against 
illiteracy, at least in the case of native-born 
children. The public library has been recog- 
nized as a necessary adjunct to our civilization. 
University Extension stands between the two, 
giving to those who have been trained in the 
public schools opportunities, not readily to be 
had by other means, to learn to read wisely ; 
it stimulates a demand for libraries and en- 
courapfes the use of books of a better class than 
would otherwise be called for; it also stands in 



a somewhat similar relation to art, music, and 
to museums containing collections meant to be 
used in study. University Extension enlists 
the co-operation of groups of people, in many 
different places, who take the lead in getting 
their neighbors to come together for a useful 
purpose; it is to some extent self-propagating, 
as the experience in one neighborhood often 
leads to the starting of a centre in another 
place. 

University Extension cannot probably be 
made self-supporting. Men who hold profes- 
sorships in colleges are not highly paid and 
they cannot well afford to lecture for nothing. 
To pay a lecturer the minimum fee at which 
really good work can be secured and to meet 
the other expenses of a course means a total 
outlay often very difficult for the local com- 
mittee to meet by the sale of tickets. The 
general society which supplies the lecturer can- 
not therefore get an income for its own uses 
by adding to the fee ; it sometimes has to help 
the centres. It is a fact, however, that the 
centres — the people who profit by the teaching 
— pay five-sixths of the entire cost, which is a 
far better result than is shown by any other 
system of higher education. 



If it has been made clear that what the Uni- 
versity Extension Society has undertaken is 
worth doing, it only remains to consider how 
it can be done in the best manner. In Eng- 
land, where University Extension began and 
from where it has spread all over Europe 
and to the United States, the lecturers are 
selected by the universities and are univer- 
sity men, but they are not university teachers. 
Here much has been accomplished by using 
college professors in such time as they could 
spare from their regular duties, but there are 
many ways in which this plan is weak. The 
college professor often cannot go to the place 
where he is wanted or at the time which suits 
the centre; he may not be a good lecturer 
although a fine scholar; he sometimes fails 
because he does not do enough of the work to 
understand the requirements of the people to 
whom he speaks. It is therefore unwise to 
restrict lecturing to university teachers, but care 
should be taken that lecturers should be amply 
qualified to speak with authority. 

The American Society has now three lec- 
turers of its own and it has used from time to 
time some of the English lecturers. It has 
been demonstrated that the man who makes 



University Extension lecturing his occupation, 
other things being equal, succeeds surprisingly 
compared with the occasional lecturer. It is 
the desire of the directors of the Society to 
add to its staff, but they cannot do so without 
ability to guarantee a certain income to the 
men whom they invite to enter the Society's 
service. Only men of rather exceptional qual- 
ities will answer, and they are not to be had 
unless it is possible to offer them reasonable 
inducements. Men with knowledge, talent, 
energy, and a self-sacrificing zeal for popular 
education are not readily found. 

Money is needed to enable the Society to 
add to its staff and also to assist centres too 
small or too poor fully to pay their own ex- 
penses ; and there is a definite need for assist- 
ance in executing a plan of giving some free 
lectures in public school buildings in Phila- 
delphia. These courses may result in such 
action by our own board of education in 
Philadelphia as has been taken in New York 
and elsewhere. 

The American Society for the Extension of 
University Teaching has been supported for 
seven years by a very small group of persons 
upon whom the cost and the labor of manage- 



ment have fallen somewhat heavily. Its value 
and the practicability of its plans have now 
been demonstrated. Philadelphia is known all 
over the country as the place in which Uni- 
versity Extension began — in which it has 
justified itself. There have been given in this 
city 193 courses of lectures, or a total of 1131 
lectures, at 33 different centres. The aggre- 
gate attendance has been 239,933. Within a 
radius of thirty miles of the city there have 
been 147 courses, or a total of 867 lectures, at 
36 centres. The total attendance has been 
122,392. 

The following is a summary of the work 
done at centres for people of small means : 

Course Total 

Courses. Lectures. Attendance. Attendance. 

Bainbridge Street 5 30 693 4158 

College Settlement i 6 115 690 

Erie Avenue i 5 225 1115 

Hebrew Literature Society. . 6 32 279 1541 

Kensington 5 30 1524 9144 

Lehigh Avenue 3 18 323 1938 

Light-House (Kensington) . . 2 11 92 500 

Nicetown i 6 66 396 

Spring Garden i 6 51 306 

Touro Hall 3 15 520 2652 

Totals 28 159 3888 22,440 

13 



Examinations at the end of the lecture 
courses have been successfully passed by 532 
students in Philadelphia, and 391 students at 
centres in the neighborhood of the city. 

Those who have so far been responsible for 
the work may reasonably ask others to help in 
maintaining it — now that it has proved its use- 
fvilness as a practicable method of popular adult 
education— one that has solidity, is far reaching, 
and, with a minimum expenditure, has shown 
excellent results. 

Subscriptions are invited to a permanent en- 
dowment fund, and to the current expense fund. 
It is desired to obtain as soon as possible, with 
a view to arrangements for next year's work, 
subscriptions which will add $6000 a year to 
the income of the Society. 



14 



The list of present subscribers to the income 
account of the University Extension Society 
is below : 



Miss Maria Blanchard, 
Mr. Charles A. Brinley, 
Mr. Alfred C. Harrison, 
Mr. Charles C. Harrison, 
Mr. Frederick B. Miles, 
Mr. John T. Morris, 
Mr. Joseph G. Rosengarten, 
Mr. Justus C. Strawbridge, 
Mr. George Burnham, Sr., 
Mr. John H. Converse, 
Mr. William P. Henszey, 
Mr. Charles E. Bushnell, 
Mr. Samuel T. Sodine, 
Mr. William H. Ingham, 
Mrs. William F. Jenks, 
Dr. Edward H. Williams, 
Mr. Carl Edelheim, 
Mr. Theodore N. Ely, 



Dr. William Pepper, 
Mr. Chancellor C. English, 
Miss Caroline E. Cope, 
Mr. George C. Thomas, 
Mr. Addison Hutton, 
Miss Anita V. Spooner, 
Mr. Redwood F. Warner, 
Mr. James C. Brooks, 
Mr. J. Albert Caldwell, 
Mr. T. P. Chandler, 
Mr. Joseph Fels, 
Miss Juliana Wood, 
Mr. W. B. Saunders, 
Mr. John Sparhawk, Jr., 
Mrs. C. H. Brush, , 
Rev. Charles Wood, 
Mr. William Burnham, 
Mrs. J. Edgar Thomson. 



The average of the above yearly subscrip- 
tions is about ^200. 



15 



COMMENTS. 



"The civic salvation of the American people will come 
through higher education adapted to the wants of adults." — 
Herbert B, Adams. 

"University Extension contemplates opening to all the 
people of the state opportunities which are now open to few, 
and to do it for the same reason that it supports the free school, 
- — namely, that it makes better American citizens." — Harper's 
Weekly. 

"The movement for University Extension marks the pro- 
gress of the democratic idea in education." — New York Even- 
ing Post. 

"I believe that with the rise and growth of University 
Extension will come a higher and a better and a nobler life for 
all our people. It will reach all the schools; it will reach the 
workshops; it will reach every class and condition of the 
community, and, while we grow rich and strong and powerful 
with our manufactures, we will grow intellectual and humane 
and have aspirations after those higher and better things, 
which, after all, must become the abiding life of every people." 
— James MacAlister, President of the Drexel Institute. 

"The development of this University Extension movement 
and its extraordinary success are the most significant facts in 
the modern history of education." — George William Curtis. 

i6 



"It is an entirely unselfish movement; nobody is making 
any money out of it; it is an entirely philanthropic design 
aimed to effect the best interests of the masses. It is sanc- 
tioned by the leading educators of the land, East and West." — 
Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College. 

"The American Society for the Extension of University 
Teaching has done a valuable work in making this movement 
known throughout the country," — Nczv York Tribune. 

"I am full of admiration for the energy and wisdom dis- 
played in the Philadelphia movement in University Extension. 
It is the most promising undertaking that I have seen thus far 
in this country to place it upon a practical basis." — William 
T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education. 

"Philadelphia has again proven its old reputation for doing 
thoroughly whatever it undertakes by the energy with which 
it has taken hold of the movement for University Extension." 
— Philadelphia Ledger. 



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